Canterbury No. 2

Cylindrical baptismal font, of a shape closely resembling a well-head, and of a type and shape not uncommon in England. The protruding upper rim has semicircles made of dotted tape; below the rim are three registers of ornamentation; the first has criss-crossing arches; the second and the third have linked rings of the same dotted tape. The font is quasi-cylindrical, slightly wider at the base; the lower base is striated and protrudes from the rest. Gough (1792) writes: "The form as well as ornaments of the font in St. Martin's church at Canterbury, pleads strongly in favour of its antiquity. It resembles a tub, as if indeed for immersion". There is a 1810 etching print of this font "drawn & etched by F.W.L.Stockdale / Published for the proprietor Dec 30 1810 by Messrs Arch, Booksellers, Cornhill", at the British Museum [ref.: AN396815001. Department: Prints & Drawings. Registration number: 1870,1008.971. Location: British XIXc Mounted Roy]. Illustrated in a drawing and engraving by W. Deeble, published by W, Clarke in 'The Antiquarian Itinerary' (1815-1818).). Described and illustrated in Simpson (1828), who "had a strong impression that this Font had at some period been taken to pieces and put together again carelessly, which would account for the disunion of the patterns: with this idea we traced off each stone upon separate pieces of paper, and put them together in various ways to ascertain whether any other arrangement than the present would be more correct, but in vain." Simpson counted a total of thirty five stones making up the font; he also discovered that the well lead lining did not reach the bottom of the well and that the hollow space "was partly filled with rubbish"; he mentioned that the drain hole in the lining is unusually large. In Poole (1842), with reference to Britton's Architectutal antiquities, vol. v. In Paley (1844) as Norman. Hussey (1852) writes: "The font here is very curious. It is composed of several pieces of carved stone, but the pattern, though generally alike, does not join correctly; which however more probably may have been caused by the pieces being wrought seprately, perhaps by different individuals, without a previously prepared model or drawing, than that the font should not have been placed here originally". Noted in Glynne (1877). Noted and illustrated in Cross & Hall (1882), who date the font as Saxon but the carving as Norman. Browne (1887) notes that the pattern on this font resembles the buckles on a hog-backed stone in West Kirkby. Described and illustrated in Cox (1905), who writes: "The age of this font has given rise to much discussion and controversy. The intersecting arcade work looks distinctly advanced Norman, but the sculpture of the two lower tiers is just as characteristic of Saxon work. The Norman carved work may have been subsequently added. It is just possible that parts of the font were used at Ethelberfs baptism [i.e., ca. 597 AD], in accordance with the ancient and at one time fairly maintained tradition. Our own theory, long held but never before advanced in print, is that the Saxon font […] in which, or by the side of which, Ethelbert was baptized, and naturally greatly prized, was broken by some accident such as a fall of part of the building, or by some sacrilegious miscreant ; and that then, towards the end of the twelfth century, it was carefully repaired by Norman artificers, and one much broken tier almost entirely renewed or recarved. At all events, there is no other font in the United Kingdom, and so far as is known in all Christendom, constructed of a variety of fragments save that of St. Martin's, Canterbury." Bond (1908) states that the sides of the St Martin's font "consist of no less than twenty-two distinct blocks" and dates some of the ornamentation to the 12th century. Bond (ibid.) denies that it could have the one in which Ethelbert, king of Kent, was baptized, as some have apparently claimed. One such claim appears in Sharp (2000), where it is given a Saxon pedigree: "The unusual Saxon font may have been converted from a 'foot-bath' used in adult baptisms to a taller font for infants by inserting an extra ring of decorated stone." This type of design is, on the contrary, not unusual [cf. for example the Index entry for Ancaster, Lincs.] for Norman fonts of the mid-12th century. That it may have existed as a previous object before, it is a possibility made plausible by the fact that, unlike most fonts of this design, which are monolithic, this one is made of two dozen blocks [cf. Bond, supra]. Tyrrell-Green (1928) admits that perhaps this may not have been the very font Bede referred to in this church and adds that "the present stone font in St. Martin's may be the identical one thus used at the time of St. Augustine's mission"; he adds that this is not a certainty but that "the peculiar way in which this font at St. Martin's is constructed separates it from the Norman fonts which it otherwise resembles, and is so far an argument in favour of its earlier date." As an combined alternative, Tyrrell-Green suggests that perhaps this is the original font and the ornamentation was added later. Listed in Romilly Allen (1888) as one of several "examples of fonts with ornmament of early character". Buck (1950) notes this as an example of an early font re-carved at a later date [NB: the other font Buck mentions is Avebury, which he suggests was a plain Saxon font re-carved by the Normans].